Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

me a file and said, “This is an unofficial preliminary report, you understand?”

“Sure. I appreciate it.”

“Speaking off the record, the larger skull is almost certainly Mick’s. The other skull, without dental records I can’t tell you very much at all. From the pictures it seems to be the skull of a small woman.”

“Thanks. It was mainly him I was interested in. But there is something else. It was a case, ten years ago, young man shot to death in the Bronx…”

She raised an eyebrow. “That narrows it down a bit.”

I smiled. “Yeah, his name was Sam Bernstein. He was from Brooklyn.”

She shrugged. “Ten years ago, John… What do you want to know?”

“You examined the body, and I want to know what you found.”

“You must have the ME’s report in the case file.”

“Yeah, but what I want to know wasn’t included.”

She sighed. I gave her the case details, and she found it in her database. As she read it, she said, “Oh, I vaguely remember this case. It was a bit unusual. His mother identified him in the end.”

“Okay, now, it says he died from a gunshot wound to the head. It was a hollow tip and probably a .45 cal. The entry wound was at the back, right?” She was nodding as she looked at the screen. I shrugged and shook my head. “A hollow tip .45 at close range with the entry in the back of the head—Lynda, he had no face!”

She looked at me. “That’s right. His face had been blown off. The exit wound was about the size of a large grapefruit, consistent with a .45 caliber. He had his driver’s license and his ID card.” She shook her head. “It’s hard to remember details, John. It was ten years ago. But there were things about it that stood out. A middle-class, well-educated Jewish boy from Brooklyn alone in that part of the Bronx in the early hours of the morning. His mother was pretty hysterical, as you can imagine. She couldn’t look at him, but she identified his clothes and his effects. What did you want to know?”

“When you get a case like that, where the face is so badly damaged, do you routinely make a record of the teeth?”

“Not routinely, but almost always.”

“Did you in this case?”

She checked the screen. “We started to. But when the mother identified him, we didn’t go ahead with it. Why?”

“How long would it take you?” She stared at me. “It is really important, Lynda. Somebody’s life could be seriously at risk.”

“Give me half an hour.”

It took her twenty minutes. She came and found me in the corridor, drinking black water that pretended to be coffee. I stood as she approached, and she handed me another thin file. “Is this official or unofficial?”

“For now, unofficial.”

“The dead man is not Sam Bernstein.”

I put my hand on her arm and led her over to a window where we were alone. “Lynda, in a week all of this can go into an official report, and I will hold myself solely responsible. But today, there is somebody at the bureau who cannot learn about this, you understand? And this is about to become a federal investigation. If that person learns about this, Sam Bernstein will die. For real this time.”

She studied my face a moment. “Okay, John. You can count on me. I trust you’ll do the right thing.”

Twenty-Four

I called Jennifer and told her I was taking a week’s holiday. She seemed relieved till I told her I didn’t want to see her there when I got back. Then I called Dehan. She didn’t answer, but I didn’t expect her to. I left her a message saying whatever plans she had for that evening to cancel them and come over to my place for a barbeque. We needed to talk.

Then I went home, showered for twenty minutes, and slept for four hours.

I was awoken by the bell. I didn’t know how long it had been ringing, but it felt persistent. I got up and leaned out of the window in my shorts. Dehan was at the door holding a bottle of wine. She looked up at me and, as usual, her lack of expression was extremely expressive.

“What time is it?”

“Seven thirty. You want me to go away?”

“No.”

I pulled on a pair of jeans and went down to open the door. She gave me a once-over and said, “Gee, Detective Stone. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

I pointed at the kitchen and said, “Beer. I’m going to have a shower. Make yourself at home.”

When I finally came down again, it was growing dusk outside. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor going through my record collection. I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. “I started buying records in 1980, just before CDs came out. I still like them better. I like the way they crackle.”

She was examining an original Led Zeppelin IV. “I bet you like the smell of books too.”

“Yup.”

“And always consult a reference book instead of checking Google.”

“You nailed me.”

She put the record on the turntable, worked out how to use it, and put it on low. I was pulling meat out of the fridge as the rasp of the guitar echoed into silence before the timeless voice bellowed.

“Why be virtual when you can be real, right?”

“Got it in one.”

I built a small tower of paper and kindling and structured the charcoal around it in a pyramid. Then I put a match to the paper and watched the flames and the smoke start to build. We chinked bottles, drank, and sat at the garden table.

“I just know that this was not a social invitation,” she said. “I can tell.”

I frowned. “Not one hundred